The trucking industry today transports more, heavier, and bulkier freight than ever before. The vast majority of such freight normally is loaded into and off-loaded from transporting trailers and rail cars from fixed loading docks whose heights can at best only average the variations in height of the loading surfaces of the various trucks and rail cars, both loaded and unloaded, that are serviced. This variation in height and the lateral gap that normally exists between the truck or car and loading dock is usually bridged by use of a dockboard or dock bridge. These dockboards are in most cases of a portable nature and are continually repositioned to serve different trucks or rail cars that are positioned in different locations.
In order to carry the heavy loads being moved on and off trucks or cars by means of hand trucks or forklifts, the dockboards are necessarily of considerable weight and their transport is generally handled by means of a forklift or other material handling vehicle rather than by hand. One of the problems in the transport of these dockboards is initially getting the forks of the forklift under the dockboard which normally sits with its exposed edge in full contact with the loading dock. A simple, safe, rugged and easy to use lifting apparatus for raising the edge of the dockboard to allow positioning of the lifting forks thereunder is a long recognized problem from both the operational and safety standpoints.
Although dockboards with such lifting apparatus have been met with limited success, none have provided a lifting apparatus that is simple to operate and construct, safe for the worker, and has a minimal number of moving parts to require little or no maintenance.